Archive for Sharing for Survival: Restoring the Climate, the Commons and Society

Mar 28, 2012Comments Off on Feasta’s new book Sharing for Survival will soon be launchedby admin

We're delighted to announce the publication of Feasta's new book, Sharing for Survival: Restoring the Climate, the Commons and Society, a 200-page collection of essays by nine Feasta Climate Group members, edited by Brian Davey. Its authors explore climate policy in a way that ensures social justice and equity matter, recognising that the UNFCCC process is going nowhere. The concluding chapter, by our much-loved late colleague Richard Douthwaite, presents reasons for optimism about the climate crisis.

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News Digest

Theresa O'Donohue attended the recent National Economic Dialogue at Dublin Castle. She comments in her blog: "I was pretty gobsmacked when I realised the actual reason climate change was on the agenda. They’re concerned about how to pay the fines we will have to pay when we don’t meet our targets for greenhouse gas emissions!!!"

Mike Sandler's new blog post discusses the role played by debt-based money in the Greek financial crisis, and the reasons why a return to a gold standard wouldn't work, and goes on to propose some solutions. Mike will be representing Feasta, along with some colleagues, at the COP-21 summit in Paris later this year.

Mike Sandler, who is heading the CapGlobalCarbon delegation to COP-25 in Paris in December, has just posted an article in the Huffington Post that explains how CapGlobalCarbon would help to achieve the Pope’s vision. …

Project Feeds

Extract from a seminal report. Find it here http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/content/politics-americas-fight-against-global-warming-0 NAMING THE PROBLEM What It Will Take to Counter Extremism and Engage Americans in the Fight against Global Warming by Theda Scokpol Political Scientist, Harvard, US : ” Politically speaking, the cap and dividend route has a number of advantages. Instead of building political support by […]

The Constitution does not reflect contemporary knowledge of the importance and role of the environment as the basis of enduring social and economic wellbeing. It most serious flaw and oversight is that it permits the alienation of the Nation’s natural resources by the current generation of the people of Ireland by actions of the organs of the State against the interest of the common good of generations to come of the people of Ireland.

With the aim of sharing information and resources on designed currencies, Feasta started a Facebook group in 2012 at https://www.facebook.com/groups/designercurrencies. The group has around 140 members worldwide and would be happy to have more.

Fleeing Vesuvius comments

this article is from a marvelous book that addresses the kind of world we are likely to transition to in the next 1-3 generations. better yet, it addresses practical considerations for trying to maintain our civility in the face of a more hostile clima...

Recent forum posts

Michael Layden and Emer O'Siochru had a discussion about the Irish Department of Agriculture's recent document "Food Harvest 2020" - described by Michael as 'surreal' - which you can read here.

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Events

This event, which is organised by the Peer to Peer Foundation, WeCreate and Cultivate, builds on the experience of The Art of Commoning, held in autumn 2014 in Montréal and the Open Everything – Collaborative Economy Convergence held in Ireland in September 2014.

The Summer School will be grounded in the actual practice of collaboration and finding synergies. Some theoretical input, both on P2P and Art of Hosting, will also be offered – mostly in short modules. New developments in P2P and commoning will be shared by Michel Bauwens, Silke …

The Basic Income Ireland 2015 summer forum will be held from 11:00 to 4:00 on Saturday June 13th, with informal discussion afterwards. The location will be the Carmelite Community Center – 56 Aungier Street, Dublin 2. It's free of charge (donations accepted).

This day long colloquium, jointly organised by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland and Urban Forum, will explore the potential for Ireland of the Community Land Trust, an emerging model for sustainable affordable housing provision in the US, Canada and the UK. Register your interest early as places are limited.

Richard Douthwaite, co-founder of Feasta and much-loved colleague and friend, died on November 14th 2011 after a long illness. We will miss his unique and far-ranging intellect, the clarity of his thought and writing, his warmth and his laughter. Tributes to him have come in from around the world and you can read them here.

Sharing for Survival comments

I came across your reference in Occupy Education by Tina Evans. I also read the Transition Towns e-letter. The move to protect resources by strengthening the indigenous communities is a powerful argument. However, the corporeate/ capital interests in Africa (the newest frontier --again) and the "war on terror" excuse to be a presense seem overwhelming forces to be fighting. I do believe the life boat analogy is an excellent one--being ready until the behemoth collapses under its own weight.

Blimey James - Sorry to continue the correspondence and please end it if you feel so, but this is important. Life is variable as the quality and quantity of the dust which revives it. The mineralsation of complex proteins into the simple elements required for plant growth is a function of a complexity of life. The whole art of husbandry is regulation of the speed of that process. Return too much fertility to a field and we increase crop yield by diminishing that of a neighbouring field.

Patrick
Not really. It's called entropy. The process that reduces complex life to dust. It happens all the time, not just by fire or pyrolysis. 'The total mass of bio' is not constant, it continually increases and decreases. By growing biomass in desert sand entropy is reversed.
James

Thanks James - Sequestration & carbon sumps are bees in my bonnet. I'll try to keep my bees under control - they are confrontational in that they oppose some central first principles of the IPCC, Zero Carbon Britain 2030 and most university departments! A little geezer becomes passionate in proportion to the mass of his opposition.

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